Computer applications are pieces of computer software that help a user thereof perform a task or a number of related tasks. In the electronic environment of today, these applications are often provided in such a way as to be accessible to a number of users. To accomplish this, a provider of the application may host the application from a particular location that is accessible via a network, such as a local area network or wide area network, such as the Internet.
In hosting the application, the provider usually hopes to attain a state in which the application is available to users in a continuous manner. However, sometimes problems arise that may cause availability to be interrupted. For example, a catastrophic disaster, such as an earthquake, fire, etc., could occur at the primary host site. In the alternative, the machine or machines may experience hardware and/or software malfunctions that cause the application to cease performing. Alternatively, communications between the host and the network may be lost, resulting in an inability of users to access the application. When these events occur, providers often perform disaster recovery to restore application functionality to users.
Currently, providers can prepare for disaster recovery in one of three ways. In the first, the application is stored on a low cost backup medium. In this state, the application merely exists as a collection of data, without a host and without resources for executing the application having been allocated to the application. As such, restoring the application to functionality may be time-intensive as a host is located and resources are allocated.
In the other two scenarios, the application is given a host and the resources required to run the application are allocated to the application. The application itself may be fully functional, or may be dormant, but ready to become functional when needed. These two solutions result in faster recovery time than the lower cost backup solution. However, the allocated resources for each of these solutions are either not utilized (dormant solution) or are utilized, but not for productive use by users (fully functional backup solution) during normal, non-disaster recovery periods of operation. Because the majority of the disaster recovery operation will exist during normal operation, resources must be fully allocated or reserved even though these solutions will not be productively utilized the majority of the time. As such, each of these solutions ties up resources that could be utilized by other applications that are being fully utilized, costing resources and money.